Various aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to teleconferencing and more particularly to compression of video for teleconferencing applications.
Conventional conferences involve locating participants at a common location (e.g., a conference room). However, in certain circumstances, it is not possible for all participants of a conference to be co-located within the same conference room. To address this scenario, video conferencing systems have been developed that take advantage of computer networks to transmit video and audio data between two or more geographically separate locations. Basically, the video conferencing system enables the participants at one location (i.e., a local endpoint) to see and hear the participants at a different, remote location (i.e., a remote endpoint).
In its most basic form, a video conferencing system equips each physically separate location (endpoint) participating in a video conference with a camera, microphone, video display, and speaker. The video camera captures video images of the participants at a corresponding local endpoint. The video conferencing system processes the captured video images (e.g., using compression) and transmits the processed video images to a remote endpoint, where the compressed video images are decompressed and displayed. Similarly, the microphone captures audio from the local endpoint, which is transmitted to the remote endpoint of the video conference. Analogously, the audio can be compressed for transmission and decompressed for audio playback at the remote endpoint.
The video display enables the participants at the local endpoint to view video captured at the remote endpoint. The display may also be utilized to view other forms of media, such as images, slide presentations, and video clips. Likewise, the speaker enables the participants at a local endpoint to hear audio captured by the microphone at the remote endpoint. The speaker may also be used to play media, such as audio files. As such, participants at each location of the video conference can see and hear the participants at the other location, as well as see and hear any other forms of media presented during the conference.